The boy and I espied this intriguing development along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Sunday -- a shared bike lane all the way from Fair Park to the Julius Schepps Freeway. It leads to the Cedar Crest Bridge, site of the "better bridge" event held last October. One day, city leaders hope, this will be just one route that links Oak Cliff and South Dallas, but HNTB and Halff Associates have long told Dallas City Hall it'll cost millions -- millions! -- to convert half of a seldom-used bridge over the Trinity River into a pedestrian park, to which some council members have responded, "Say what now?"

Anyway. Took a few days to get The Official Answer from Dallas City Hall about whether this was the first bike lane in the city with actual bike-lane markings. I first asked Theresa O'Donnell, head of Sustanable Development, who whoa-whoa-whoa'd the council last year and then again in February by telling them the new bike plan was swell and all, just not, ya know, funded.

O'Donnell told us to ask Public Works about the MLK bike lane, recommending we speak with director Rick Galceran. He didn't know anything about it and said we should talk to Gilbert Aguilar, director of the Department of Street Services. Aguilar confirmed that this is "the first on-road bike path," but said we should talk to either Max Kalhammer, the city's bike coordinator, or Keith Manoy, one of the city's senior transportation planners. Said Aguilar, "My understanding is this is part of the citywide bike plan."

Kalhammer never did call back, but Manoy did and explained that MLK was resurfaced and restriped last week, and that his department's been working with Brent Brown's City Hall-HQ'd Dallas City DesignStudio on "a possible reconfiguration of that roadway for long-term and short-term solutions." Said Manoy, "The opportunity was there to put those [lane markings] in there, so we took it."

The reason, he explained: "We want to make a connection between the Trinity and Fair Park, and this was an opportunity to get that accomplished." But he reminded: This isn't cheap. "Those icons are labor-intensive," he said. "They're not done by machine. They're done by folks on the street using stencils. They use thermoplasty and lay them down by hand. And money's still going to be an issue getting this done. But we're trying to take the opportunity where can get to do it."

"We are actively looking at every opportunity to get this kicked off," Manoy says. "When it comes to actual bike lanes, which we're looking at, we're looking at having that demonstration on Fort Worth Avenue between Sylvan and Edgefield, connecting with the Coombs Creek Trail, within the next month, by the end of June. You'll be able to see this next year, bicycle infrastructure taking shape within the city."